ISCAP Proceedings: Abstract Presentation
A Choice Coupled with Interest Approach in Teaching Introductory Programming
Xiaoyun He
Auburn University - Montgomery
Abstract
Despite a wealth of studies and debate, learning computer programming remains a challenging undertaking for most novices. In addition to the perceived difficulty of programming, demotivation and lack of persistence have often been cited as major factors attributed to poor student performance in introductory programming course. Inspired by psychological research that have linked the provision of choice to increased levels of intrinsic motivation, greater persistence, better performance, and higher satisfaction, we introduce a choice-based approach, in which students are given the choice to meet the programming requirements: Propose and work on an application of their interest, or complete the programming assignments provided by the instructor as what students normally do in programming courses. Our data shows that the students who chose to work on an application of their interest clearly outperformed those who did not in both programming assignments and other performance assessments. In addition, the preliminary results from the comparison between choice-given class and no choice-given class suggest the implementation of choice-based approach led to improvement in both student persistence of completing programming assignments and their performance throughout the semester.